The Twitter-speak president
Tuesday, May 27 2014

Front page, The Washington Post, May 24, 2014, reporting on President Obama’s nomination of San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro as secretary of housing and urban development: “Castro has been focused on ‘revitalizing one of our most wonderful cities,’ Obama said in making the announcement, describing the nominee as someone who has ‘worked his tail off to achieve the American dream.’”

On being told that “one thing about Jerry Ford is he’s like the guy next door,” Richard Nixon agreed, but added, “Would you want the guy next door to be President of the United States?”

Thirty years later, the great thing about George W. Bush, we were told, was his filling the bill as “the guy you’d like to have a beer with.”

In the new age of Twitter-speak eloquence, we’re treated to a President of the United States who’s not only the guy next door you’d like to have a beer with, but brings things down to a level even an adolescent dropout can understand.

Memorial Day having passed, we can now look forward to his July Fourth announcement noting how Jefferson, Franklin, and all those Founding guys “worked their tails off to give us the American dream.”

Soundbite to remember

“Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.”

— Samuel Johnson on the practical limits to the First Amendment

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Victor Gold

About the author

Victor Gold is a Washington journalist whose most recent book was "Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP." A former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush, he co-authored the former president's autobiography, "Looking Forward." Included among his other books is "The Body Politic," a satirical fiction written with Lynne Cheney, then-chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Gold lives with his wife, Dale, and two paleo-conservative cats.
(Photograph by JohnNelsonPhoto.com)